When it comes to music streaming platforms Spotify and Apple music are undoubtedly two of the largest market holders in the entire space. These two behemoth music streaming services account for roughly 46-50% of the overall paid music subscribers in the world. While the other 50% is shared between Amazon Music, Google Music, Pandora, and 8-9 other independent music streaming services. The fact that two music streaming services account for the same market share that 10-12 other streaming services share amongst themselves should demonstrate just how massive these two platforms are.
It’s fair to say that Spotify and Apple Music are at the top of the game when it comes to music streaming platforms. However, this still leaves users with a hard choice to make. Do they subscribe to Apple Music, or do they go with Spotify?
Spotify has the larger market share, around 31-34% compared to Apple at 15-16%, but the two streaming services offer a different user experience, and a variety of different features. Keep reading to find out which streaming service makes more sense for you.
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The Music Library
When it comes to the music library itself, both Spotify and Apple Music have robust music libraries with a healthy selection of popular artists across just about every genre imaginable. Apple Music has around 60 million songs in its library, but more impressive than that are the exclusive deals that they’re known for signing. Noteworthy deals Apple Music has signed in the past have been with artists and creators like Drake and Taylor Swift which allowed the streaming service access to early content releases.
On the other hand, Spotify has an 80 million song library and sees about 40,000 songs added daily, which makes sense seeing as they make it easy to learn how to upload music to spotify. The robust music library that Spotify boasts over Apple Music gives them a slight edge when it comes to working with new, up and coming, and independent artists. Making Spotify a great choice for true indie lovers.
The Sound Quality
When it comes to actual sound quality, though, there’s no beating Apple Music. They offer one of the best audio-phile-grade experiences there is on the market, accompanied with their robust music library, exclusive radio shows, and contracts with highly recognized artists and influencers.
Spotify HiFi is a feature that Spotify has been talking about rolling out for around a year now, but they still haven’t hit the mark with the higher quality sound streaming subscription they’ve been planning to offer users. Meanwhile, Apple Music has incredible sound quality available to their paid subscribers at no extra cost. If you’re looking for the best listening experience possible, Apple Music is going to be your choice.
There are other music streaming platforms that are specifically focused on providing a supreme sound quality, however their music library is much smaller.
Moving Past Music
So Spotify and Apple Music have almost comparable streaming libraries, though Spotify is more new artist friendly, while Apple Music focuses more on exclusive partnerships and leveraging their high sound quality. So, what else do these two streaming platforms bring to the user to differentiate themselves?
For Spotify, the answer is wrapping in additional forms of audio entertainment. It started by simply rolling in podcasts into the listening library. This is a huge differentiator, as Apple has separated Apple Podcasts from Apple Music. Making it two apps instead of one. If you’re looking for a centralized listening library; Spotify is your spot.
Spotify also didn’t stop with podcasts though, they’ve also recently introduced audio books onto their listening platform. This makes them a truly all-encompassing audio-entertainment streaming service, and gives them additional market spaces to grow into.
The Recommendations
Another way the two streaming services differ is in the algorithm they use to learn listening habits and make recommendations. Algorithms are always being improved and this is where having more time and experience can really come into play. Spotify has been in the game of recognizing listening habits and making appropriate recommendations for over a decade now, and they’ve all but perfected their ability to craft personalized playlists and recommended tracks.
Since Apple Music is simply a newer streaming platform, their recommendation algorithm has a long way to go before it truly compares to Spotify’s.
The User Experience
Last, but certainly not least, is the user experience. This is important to take into consideration because both of these apps are so often used on a mobile device like a smartphone.
This is another area in which Spotify outshines Apple Music, though the line is close. Spotfiy’s UI is just cleaner, easier to navigate, and features a slightly better design, which is kind of surprising given Apple’s reputation for user experience and design.
Finishing up on Spotify vs. Apple Music
Apple Music and Spotify are both great music streaming services that are at the top of the game. However, when it comes down to it, Spotify continues to dominate the market share for a reason.
